Boy, 12, sent to yet another school
West Demerara school fracas Teachers say will try different reform methods
By Kim Lucas
Stabroek News
November 14, 2003
The 12-year-old boy who was involved in a fracas with a female teacher at a West Demerara school two Fridays ago, has been placed at another school where the teachers say they will try different methods at reforming him.
On October 30, a scuffle broke out between the first former and the teacher after the boy allegedly attempted to stab the teacher. When the dust cleared, the child had a wound over one of his eyes. Officials of the Ministry of Education, the Regional Wel-fare Department, the police and the Guyana Teachers Union launched investigations into the incident. And reports from the Region Three office stated that the student had been expelled from other schools because of deviant behaviour.
This week, the child's mother and an aunt denied that the boy had attacked the teacher. The mother feels that the education system and the teachers are to blame for her son's behaviour. She argued that each time he left a school it was because other students were taking advantage of him and forcing him into conflict situations.
"In the classrooms, the teachers are sitting there and the children are fighting and when you ask them, they say all the children are bad," the mother of four told Stabroek News on Monday.
She charged that "people" were in the habit of "lying on" the child and as a result, she had him transferred, over a two-year period, from Stewartville Primary School on the West Coast Demerara, to Patentia Primary School on the West Bank Demerara, then to La Retraite Primary in the same district where he wrote common entrance exams and gained entry to St John's Community High School, West Coast Demerara. Following last month's incident at St John's, the child has been transferred yet again.
The mother insisted that the child's behaviour could be explained. "Children does be beating him up because he can't fight... If they [school administrators] had put things in place since the first incident, it would have [been] over," she opined.
The child's paternal aunt, who now has custody of him, acknowledged that the child is wayward. She said he started to act up after his father left the home to study overseas. She also attributed his behaviour to the environment in which he was left. A former teacher told this newspaper that the boy "displayed dysfunctional behaviour more than once" and that his stepfather blamed the mother.
Wherever the blame is cast, interviews revealed that among other things, the child is a product of a broken home who was left with relatives for some time after his mother remarried and moved away. In that environment the child was reportedly arrested for stealing.
Regional Education Offi-cer, Doodmattie Singh, said welfare officers have counselled the child on numerous occasions and even recommended a stint at the New Opportunity Corps at Onder-neeming on the Essequibo Coast.
But the boy's mother scoffed at the idea. "That is the ignorance that they write on the paper and send to Ms Arthur," of the welfare department the woman stated.
A mother's tale
"It is an allegation that the child tried to wound the teacher", were the first words out of the woman's mouth. She related that around 1995, she moved from the West Coast Demerara, to Wales on the West Bank after her marriage. Her two sons were left with their grandmother at Stewartville for three years.
After an incident at the Stewartville Primary School in 1998 or 1999, she said, a welfare officer told her to take custody of the children. Asked about that incident, she explained that apparently children had been playing in the classroom and a child "who was older than him held his hands behind him and took his knee and pushed it in his back and [my son] get black out [lost consciousness]."
The woman said the head teacher summoned an ambulance and took the boy to the West Demerara Regional Hospital. She said that the child was later transferred to the Georgetown Public Hospi-tal Corporation and an x-ray revealed that he had a broken rib. As a result, he was away from school for three weeks. The mother said she decided to "settle the matter".
At the same school some time later, she said, the boy was again taken to hospital after passing out. "He was playing and get a hit and fall down and get blackout... somebody do that to him twice. They take him to the hospital. By then, I get angry and went to the school to the headmaster and asked him why twice my son had to be taken to the hospital and then he said let us go to the ministry."
She said it was then that the welfare department suggested that the children should be with her and in 1999, while in Primary Three and Primary Two, they were transferred to the Patentia Primary School.
"After a while, [my son] started getting into conflicts with children... fights. One day, he come home and said the teacher hit him in his head. When I went to [the teacher], he said [my son] was in the classroom and he told [him] to go outside and stand until he come. He say [my son] go and stand up and stretch out his mouth. He said he only tap the boy. I just leave it like that after he said the boy was lying."
Later, the mother said, she received reports from several persons that her son was constantly being sent to buy cigarettes for one of the male teachers. She cautioned the lad and told him to stop the purchases. "So the day when he tell the teacher that, the teacher said he is rude, after which the teacher claimed that he [the boy] and a next child went in some hitting problem and when he go to hit [my son], my son held on to a whip and spin him [the headmaster] around."
She said another teacher pulled her child away from the headmaster and summoned her. At the school, the following day, the woman said, the headmaster confided that he could not sleep the previous night, because the child "tired him out". She was then sent to the Ministry of Education to see an official.
An official at the Patentia School told Stabroek News on Wednesday that the headmaster had not attempted to whip the child, but had held him by the shoulder to scold him, when the boy attacked the teacher.
Meanwhile, the mother said, she removed both boys from the school for fear that they would be victimised. Last year, they began to attend La Retraite Primary. "They were not transferred from there to no other school... There is no fighting with teachers or nothing like that at La Retraite school."
The altercation
When contacted on Tues-day, the child's aunt with whom he now resides opined that the teachers at the school had painted a bad picture of her nephew.
Initial reports stated that the October 31 altercation occurred while the boy was being disciplined for stabbing another child a day earlier. The teachers had ordered both boys to have their parents accompany them to school the following day. But on October 31, only the wounded child took his mother. Reports stated that the attacker was placed to sit on a bench, but instead ran off and had to be chased by students, who escorted him back into the schoolyard, where the incident with the teacher occurred. Sources said the boy had kicked and cuffed the female teacher and threatened to "drop" her "and go back to jail".
The boy's aunt said that this version of the events was concocted to cover up the wounding of her nephew. "I went to the school and children meet me and say, 'Auntie, teacher beat up yuh son and buss he eye.'...I hide at de school, go up de steps easy and heard they [the teachers] saying what they must say... He [the child] indeed say he gon get somebody to doctor she [the teacher]...If I was there, it mighta been me," the aunt said.
Her contention was that if the child had misbehaved, the teachers should have dealt with him differently. And after he was wounded in the fracas, he should have been taken to the hospital, instead of the police station. "Miss, I am not saying that de boy isn't bad [but] he is not a child where he does do something and hold back." According to the woman, the child usually owns up if he curses, or fights with someone. She said that had he attacked the teacher with a broken bottle, he would have admitted it.
Speaking to Stabroek News in a brief telephone interview, the boy, in barely audible speech, said another student at the school had "promised" to beat him a few days earlier.
"He trip and when he fall down, he think is me trip he... de next day I ask he if it was not he who promise fo beat me and he come up to me and meh had a piece a wood and meh bore he with it in three place," the child stated.
The following day, he was placed to sit on a bench since a guardian did not accompany him to school. At the lunch break, the child said, he was hungry and went downstairs to eat. It was then that the headmistress missed him and sent some pupils in search of him, the lad told this newspaper. So he sent back to tell her in some colourful language that he was eating. "A boy run and say I cussing up and de headmistress thought me cussing she up and some children run for ketch me and meh pick up a bottle and break it and say, 'Yuh could come!'"
The lad said he subsequently dropped the bottle and ran with the children chasing him. When he was caught and escorted into the schoolyard, he said, several teachers "scramble meh and push meh to de wall". He said that the bottle at the centre of the allegation was dropped on the road and that at no time had he threatened the teacher with the object. He admitted threatening to "drop" the teacher.
Contacted on Wednesday, the headmistress and other teachers at that school refused to comment on the incident.
"They are forcing this child to become a criminal," the aunt stated, "he did not beat the headmaster [at Patentia School]. He spin and the headmaster stumble and fall down. At Stewartville, he was living with an aunt who was dealing with drugs... maybe he get involve in weed... he smoke de weed and go to school [and] all I know, de granny sent to call me."
A ray of hope
The child's stepfather feels that the mother is responsible for the children's behaviour. He said the woman had told him to stay out of any matters concerning her and the boys.
"From since I start stay out, he start behave bad," the man stated. He claimed that many nights, after his wife left him, the child would go to his home to sleep or to get something to eat.
Ms Singh said the region's welfare officers have been counselling both brothers for years.
Teachers at the school in which the child has now been placed are bent on reforming him. Some said they have spoken to the boy and will try different methods of disciplining him.
"He was asked to show total respect to the teachers and children...[the teachers] will show more care for him, more love and that he is wanted. They would be proud to know that they can transform this child, but he has to abide by the rules of the school."
According to the aunt, the child's father is a pastor and is very busy looking after his ministry. She has promised to do her best to raise him.